December
23, 2012
David
Timbs
Reclaiming
it
The
origins of many festivals in the Christian calendar are to be found in the
memory of pre-Christian peoples such as those in the Near East, Asia, among
the Greeks, Romans, Druids and their Celtic cousins. These include Sun
festivals, solstices, harvest festivals and so on. The northern European Spring
festival was quickly absorbed by Christianity and transformed. It became the
most important observance in its calendar namely, the Passion, death and
Resurrection of the Lord. Now Eostre,
the Nordic goddess of fertility symbolised by the hare, has paradoxically made a
triumphant return and re-paganised Easter.
The
Druids, Romans and others celebrated the winter solstice with its celebration of
the return of the Sun – Sol Invictus. Christians
subsumed this observance into Christmas. Coca Cola and big business have now
identified a weak spot in the Christian facade and struck back on behalf of the
pagans. Christmas has now been successfully retrieved and rebranded with the
face of that jolly great identity thief, Santa Claus. Santa has been marketed
with astonishing success almost globally along with his ally, the Easter Bunny.
These two playful figures have become the greatest friends of the big end of
town, the banks and the credit-card companies. [1]
It
would be wrong, churlish, mean, small minded and narrowly moralistic of
Christians to condemn people now celebrating in a thoroughly secular way what
were formerly religious festivals. A measure of compassion is called for, even
demanded, by God. There is no place for aggressive vengeful reaction. This was
made very clear indeed in one of the few but powerful parables in the Hebrew
Scriptures. The Book of Jonah recounts the story of a reluctant prophet who was
consumed with resentment that God had held back from utterly destroying the
pagan Assyrians of Nineveh. God instead subverted Jonah’s religious arrogance
and judgmental attitudes, “And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in
which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know
their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4: 11)
The
challenge of secular humanism
The
modern Ninevites are being manipulated and exploited by the high priests the new
nature gods. They are persuaded to
consume mindlessly in the name of commercialism and take extravagantly extended
festival time to enjoy it all. Australia,
for example, is for all intents and purposes a post
Christian society. Its soul and its rhetoric are secular and its national
ethos is founded in a rather benign secular-humanism.
Its fruits are many and well documented.
Australians
have traditionally treasured these values and aspirations. In fact, they
probably come as close to a national religion as any other confessional system.
Most Australians are by nature cynical about authority of any kind and they are
especially sceptical about organised religions and their leaders. Typically,
they regard these as sanctimonious, self-interested and self-righteous. Major
religious denominations have largely failed dismally to counter this ingrained
national culture of suspicion. While some notable Catholic leaders such as
Cardinal Pell refer to this as neo-Paganism
some would claim that it is precisely this kind of paganism that has produced and promoted extraordinary expressions of
human altruism and sheer goodness.
Christian
traditions have long struggled to come to terms and deal with the fact that
Australia, along with many other western countries, has long abandoned organised
religions. Furthermore, Deism, agnosticism and atheism are not in the least
alien to this society. [2]
The
rituals of Australian secular humanism
Secular
societies continue to maintain and value a sense of memorial, observance and
ritual. Australia is no exception.
Prominent among its sacred rites are Australia
Day and Anzac Day. There is even a
sacred calendar marking the passage of the football and cricket seasons. All
have their own rituals, protocols and symbols. The domain of the sacred
secular avidly guards its own household gods. These are the deities of human
achievement and, paradoxically, even failure. Almost peculiar to Australia is
the latter. The utter disaster and tragedy of the Anzac military campaign which
began in 1915 is etched deeply into the national psyche and celebrated in some
kind of reverse logic rarely seen in other societies. Interestingly, Anzac
represents something of a secular Calvary.
Organised Christian groups are strangely shy or even mute on exploring this
notion as fruit common ground in any conversation with secular Australian
society.
Big
business, the marketeers and the advertisers are industrious in developing
strategies to dumb down any references to what major Christian festivals
actually mean. That would be awkward to say the least. These meanings and
symbols have been perversely morphed by a secular counter-culture. Commercialism
has ensured that Happy Christmas now
bends the knee to happy holidays! The Risen Christ –
Christos aneste – is now made to worship at the shrine of the Eoestre
and her March hare. Even Christians have been complicit in this value
displacement for centuries. The Way of the Cross in Jerusalem as observed from
Crusader times has wound predictably through the souks
and past the souvenir shops!
Moveable
Feasts
What
Christians can do with some initial inconvenience, flexibility and great
courage, is to reclaim Christmas and Easter from the neo-Druids, their
exploitative agnostic successors in Big Business and their acolytes namely, the
spruikers of consumerism. They are the shonky wizards who work the charade of
psychological alchemy whereby wants
are transformed into needs.
It
might be now seriously worth considering some thoughts, reflections and
suggestions I wrote about in June, 2010. [3] Christians might adopt a number of
boldly creative strategies to reclaim their sacred memorials and thereby
re-establish a greater sense of collective identity. This would require an
enormous confidence as well as will-power. It would amount to a bold and
prophetic gesture which could in fact promote the re-evangelisation of a
post-religious world. Principally it would involve a conscious rescheduling of
core religious observances from their traditional spots on the calendar. A
change of dates could be made on a regular basis and perhaps with as little as a
month’s notice. Celebrations of these feasts could be observed over a
nominated weekend for observance sake. This initiative would also involve a
boycott all of the secular symbols that go with the secular commercialism. If
anything, it might just encourage people to think, make choices and to act
accordingly.
Initially
the response of many if not most Christians would be bewilderment, confusion
even anger. All of these, understandably, may perhaps manifest themselves in a
variety of ways. Much would invariably depend on the level of peoples’
flexibility and resilience. One thing is for sure. Any massive and random
manipulation of the Christian calendar would infuriate many sectors of the
secular world. Attempts to take the cash out of Christ would be met with highly
reactive rage at almost all levels of business, government and even other
religious traditions. Maybe that’s just the kind of jolt they need. Christians
could well and truly do with a dose of this kind of parabolic disturbance.
[1]
For a recent Jana Reiss reflection on the secularisation/commercialisation of
Christmas and its challenges to Christians, click here.
Teresa Pirola makes a similar point in a recent insightful Cathnews (18/12/12) blog.
See here.
[2]
On the Atheism as the new secular religion, click here.
An essay by an atheist on what Christmas means to him.
[3]
On the common ground shared by believers and atheists, see here.
David Timbs writes from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.